16 April 2013

Queen's Sailing Finishes Second in Leroy Grant

Podium finish at the year's penultimate regatta.

By Queen's Sailing

The QST placed second at the 2013 Leroy Grant.

On the weekend of April 13 & 14 the Queen’s Sailing Team took a trip down to Christopher Newport University in Virginia for the 2013 Leroy Grant Regatta. Eight teams from all over Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA) were in attendance. Sixteen races were complete as scheduled, four on Saturday morning, six on Saturday afternoon and six on Sunday morning.

The two fleets of eight 420s and eight FJs were sailed in unified starts over the same course. This was very different from how the team would usually sail and created challenging conditions with a lot of boat traffic. The team strived to win both the division, and line honours.

Races were held at the mouth of the Warwick River on the Chesapeake. Both days started with a short delay waiting for wind. The wind filled in from the southeast on Saturday and from the southwest on Sunday. Both days were 25C and sunny with wind varying from 4-14 knots. Tidal currents were stronger than usual both days and made starting and tactics tough.

Courses were W-4s except for the final race on Saturday which was a long W-3 in the highest winds of the day. This provided a drag-race to windward won by Peter Soosalu and Will Schwenger. Matt Sullivan and Eric Goldfarb had an exceptional Sunday winning 4 of the 6 races.

Competition was tough and every team scored at least one division first place finish. Queen’s battled it out with Villanova throughout the event for the top spot. Ultimately, Queen’s just couldn’t get the edge and placed second to a well sailed Villanova Wildcats squad.

We would like to thank CNU for hosting us and running a great regatta. It was alot of fun and a nice break from the cold weather and exams of Kingston!